【英语生活】猎头何须废话

A few years ago, I spent a day at Korn Ferry pretending to be a headhunter. I raced round London in taxis, sat in on interviews and drew up lists. When it was time to go home, I asked the woman I had been shadowing if she would give me a job. No, she replied after an indecently short pause. The main problem with me, she said, was that I said what I thought.This was a blow, as I had thought I'd found my vocation. Headhunting (contrary to its slimy reputation) struck me as being just as worthwhile as teaching or nursing but without the dismal salary. Finding the right person for the right job is more important than most things, and anyone who can do it deserves not only a place in heaven (or similar) but also the thwacking great fee they extract for their efforts.

Yet recently I have started to feel less bruised about the rejection. Talking my mind may have ruled me out as a headhunter, but now saying anything that even makes sense disqualifies one from joining what practitioners call the “executive search space”.

Modern headhunters spout as much guff as management consultants, but without the excuse. Consultants have to, to hide the fact that it often isn't clear what they're selling. Headhunters are selling something pukka so there's no reason why they can't come right out and say so.

Korn Ferry describes itself as “The premier provider of human capital solutions” and the other big firms are no better. Heidrick & Struggles boasts that “as innovators, we are actively redefining top-level search to encompass complementary services”. Michael Page's approach goes for bathos. “Our journey starts when we see a difference between where we are today and where we want to be,” it says on its website.

Last week an acquaintance told me he had just employed one of the world's largest headhunting firms to help him find a new managing director. He received an introductory e-mail from the firm that began: “As a Leading Total Talent Solution Provider, we have some special assessment tools to help identify the ‘right' candidate.”

The only important word here – right – has acquired inverted commas, while the rest seems have been produced by an automatic buzzword generator. All the above words are dismal, but the word “talent” is the worst. Most people aren't terribly talented at all. And, once you start talking of talent, it's only a hop, skip and jump to “talent pools”, with the dangerously misleading idea that schools of talent are swimming around, just ready to be fished out by the headhunter.

With the e-mail came attached a “Leadership Advantage Toolkit” containing 66 characteristics that might be desirable in a leader, including “dealing with paradox” and “organisational agility”. These had to be rated according to “mission critical”, “important” and so on.

This is a low trick. It is about making clients think they are buying rigour in the hope this will make them less likely to protest when presented with the inevitably disappointing shortlist of candidates.

In fact headhunting is both simple and difficult. The theory is simple: there are good managers and not-so-good ones. Alas, most are fairly mediocre, as managing isn't easy. Choosing the good ones has nothing at all to do with 66 carefully weighted competencies: it is more a matter of finding three. The ability to think, the ability to act, and (most important) the ability to get others to act.

To find such people means having good contacts and doing an awful lot of slow and tedious checking to discover whether candidates really are good. This is a slog. This is another reason why headhunting might not have been the job for me.

Not so tender morsels

It isn't just headhunters who hugely overcomplicate the talk about “talent”. The solicitor Eversheds has come up with a list of personality types to embody what it is looking for in its trainee lawyers.

Finding the English language inadequate, it has invented seven new words: “Knowlivators”: (knowledgeable motivators); “Logithizers” (logical empathisers); “Proactilopers” (proactive developers) and four other clumping concepts. This is old hat. Martin Lukes, Financial Times columnist and now CEO of a-b gl?b?l, invented these hybrid concepts in 2000 with his leading edge “Creovation?”, which was 50 per cent creativity, 50 per cent innovation – and 120 per cent drivel.

Choosing good young corporate lawyers can be hard, but that is not because Proactilopers are thin on the ground. It is because demand is high and not all qualified solicitors want to sign their lives away. A friend who is a senior partner at a law firm was recently asked by one of her new recruits: “Will I get enough sleep?” to which the answer was most definitely “no”.

Only one of the seven Eversheds characteristics slips off the tongue. That is Winnowmat, the winning diplomat. But the reason it rings a bell is that it sounds like Winalot. Which is dog food. Or what used to be called dog food. Now Purina, the company that makes it (Mission: “Your pet, Our Passion) explains that what it is really selling is “expertise that can enrich the relationship you share with your pet”.

Headhunters can take comfort after all: they may make a meal out of talking about their business but at least they are in the excellent company of the makers of Tender Meaty Morsels.

几年前，我曾在光辉国际(Korn Ferry)呆过一天，自称是个猎头。我打车跑遍了伦敦，出席面试，草拟清单。到了该回家的时候，我问那位我一直跟着的女士，是否会给我一份工作。她几乎没有停顿就回答说，不！她说，我的主要问题是我想什么就说什么。这简直是当头一棒，因为我本以为自己找到了职业发展方向。对我而言，做猎头（与其不佳的名声相反）就像做老师或护士一样有价值，而且薪水不菲。找到恰当的人从事恰当的工作比很多事情都重要，能做这份工作的人不仅应该进天堂（或类似的地方），而且应该为付出的努力获得巨额收入。

不过最近，我开始对此次被拒绝感到不那么悲伤了。有话直说或许让我做不了猎头，但现在，就算是说句有意义的话，也会使人失去资格，不能进入从业人士所谓的“高管搜索领域”。

现代猎头的废话像管理顾问一样多，但他们没有借口。管理顾问不得不讲废话，因为他们往往需要隐瞒这样一个事实：他们并不清楚自己在卖什么。猎头则在出售一些实际的东西，因此他们没有理由不明明白白地表述清楚。

光辉国际将自己描述成“人力资本问题解决办案的首要供应商”，而且其它大型公司不会更好。海德思哲(Heidrick & Struggles)自诩为“革新者，我们正积极重新定义搜寻高层人士的工作，将补充性服务也包括在其中。”Michael Page追求意想不到的效果。该公司在网站上说：“当我们看到目前的自己与未来目标之间的差距时，我们的旅程便开始了。”

上周，一位熟人告诉我，他刚聘用了全球最大猎头公司中的一家，帮他找一位新的董事总经理。他接到了这家公司发给他的一封介绍性电邮，开头是这样写的：“作为一家领先的全方位人才问题解决办案供应商，我们有一些特殊的评估工具，帮助筛选‘合适'候选者。”

这里唯一一个重要的词——“合适”——放在了引号里，其它的词似乎都是自动术语生成器生成的。所有的词都乏味无趣，但最糟的是“人才”这个词。大多数人都不是十分有才。一旦你开始讨论人才，那不过是来个三级跳，进入“人才库”，同时还会形成一种危险的误导性观念：大批人才正在四处游动，只待猎头钓上钩。

这封电邮还附有一个名为“领导优势工具包”的附件，其中包括领导者也许应当具有的66项特征，包括“处理似是而非的问题”和“组织灵活性”。这些特征要按“至关重要”、“重要”等等级别进行评级。

这是种并不高明的伎俩。它是想让客户以为自己购买的东西很严谨，希望在递交给客户的候选者名单不可避免地短得令人失望时，降低客户提出抗议的可能性。

实际上，做猎头既容易又困难。道理很简单：有好的经理人，也有不那么好的。唉，大多数都是相当一般的，因为管理可不是件容易事。选择优秀人员与66项精心挑选的特长一点关系都没有：寻找3种能力更为重要：思考的能力、行动的能力，以及最重要的是，让他人行动的能力。

寻找这类人意味着，要有良好的人脉，要进行大量耗时费力的核查工作，查看候选者是否真正优秀。这很难。这就是做猎头之所以可能不适合我的另一个原因。

将“人才”讨论过于复杂化的，不只是猎头。英国律师事务所Eversheds拿出一份清单，列明了自己希望在新律师身上看到的个性类型。

这家律所发现英语词汇还不能充分表达自己的意思，于是发明了7个新词：“Knowlivators”（knowledgeable motivators，知识渊博、能发挥激励作用的人）；“Logithizers”（logical empathisers，合理同情者）；“Proactilopers”（proactive developers，积极主动的开拓者）以及其它4个合成概念。这实在老套。2000年，英国《金融时报》专栏作家、现任a-b global首席执行官的马丁•卢克斯(Martin Lukes)以其前沿的“Creovation?”（创新）发明了这些混合概念，Creovation?是50%的创造力(creativity)和50%革新力(innovation)，再加120%的胡言乱语。

选择年轻有为的公司律师可能很难，但这不是因为Proactilopers少，而是因为要求高，而且不是所有有资格的律师都想放弃自己的生活。最近，一名新员工问了我在律所做高级合伙人的朋友一个问题：“我能有充足的睡眠吗？”这个问题的答案几乎肯定是“不能”。

Eversheds列出的7个特征中，只有一个好记，那就是Winnowmat（winning diplomat，获胜的外交官）。但它之所以容易记住，是因为它听起来像Winalot。这是一种狗粮，或者说过去被叫做狗粮。现在其生产公司普瑞纳(Purina)（任务：“至爱宠物，至情呵护”）解释称，该公司实际出售的是“增进你与宠物关系的专业知识”。

猎头毕竟可以得到宽慰：他们或许因讨论业务而混顿饭吃，但至少有美味香嫩肉制品公司与他们一鼻孔出气。

译者/何黎

《FT商学院》